Frenetic ramblings from the start of the "War on Terror" logging my attempts to film outside Finsbury park mosque over 3 years and sitting through all the subsequent court cases. These days I write about whatever and generally stay out of trouble. Do visit Youtube.com/malungtvnews

December 02, 2012

STRONG STUFF

A FORMER MI5 agent who spied on hate preacher Abu Qatada has vowed to bring him to justice at any cost.

Reda Hassaine, 50, tracked Qatada for the security ­services in the 1990s and also helped them snare Abu ­Hamza.

But he claims he was ditched by spooks after his cover was blown when he was beaten up by the extremist’s henchmen in 1999.

The
French-Algerian spy last night lifted the lid on his ­mission to
“finish” Qatada, 52, which will see him ­publish a dossier of evidence
against the extremist in a tell-all book.

Qatada was freed last month after spending six years in custody for being a danger to the public.

He
won a long- running battle against deportation to his homeland of
Jordan and is now living with his wife and children in West London.

The cleric had been convicted in his absence in Jordan of terrorist offences in 1999.

Mr Hassaine told us: “It is between Reda Hassaine and Abu Qatada.

“This guy has to pay and, thank God, I helped get Abu Hamza sent to jail, probably for the rest of his life.

“But Abu Qatada, he is still here on the streets. The final battle is now the book.

“The
British Government will be obliged to start a public ­inquiry regarding
all the lost years for my colleagues and ­myself.” He added: “The book
will be ­published first in America in ­August around the time of Abu
Hamza’s trial.

“Abu Hamza, for me, is finished. But for Abu Qatada it is a ­different story.

“If he was sent (to Jordan) two weeks ago, it would have been finished.

“But
this decision keeps me and many other people ­angry about it and
­trying to find what we can do to sort out this big problem of Abu
Qatada staying in the UK.

“In
other countries it would be a political decision but not in the UK. The
Queen wants him to be deported, the Government wants him to be
­deported.”

Mr Hassaine also claimed there had been contact between the Government and ­active ­terrorists.

He
called on ministers to come clean over the so-called “covenant of
security” – a deal allegedly forged between security services and
Islamic extremists in the 1990s in return for Britain being struck off a
list of potential ­terror targets...